ECCO has eight entries selected for the European Excellence Award 2007 shortlisted

Marco de Comunicación (ECCO SPAIN) and Shine Communications are the favourites to win, both agencies with six finalists

• ECCO positions itself as favourite in this year's European Excellence Award, which recognizes Europe's best campaigns with 6 finalists for its Spanish member Marco de Comunicación and 2 for its Polish member On Board PR.

• Marco de Comunicación’s campaigns for Madeira Promotion Bureau, MSC Cruises, Laboratorios Intervet and 4D Hispano have been short listed for best campaign in their respective category.

• On Board Public Relations’ “NSZZ Solidarnosc: Low Wages a Barrier to Poland's Development” campaign has been short listed for Public Affairs and the Polish Region.

Madrid, London, 19 November 2007 

ECCO, one of the leading networks of independently owned and operated PR and marketing communications consultancies, has eight nominations in the short list of the European Excellence Award 2007 (http://www.excellence-awards.eu/_files/excellence_shortlist.pdf).
The Excellence Awards honour the outstanding performance of European PR campaigns in a wide variety of categories. The gala ceremony, which takes place in December 13th, will honour the winners chosen by an expert jury from 600 entries from all over Europe.

Marco de Comunicación (MdC), the most awarded Spanish PR agency in 2005 and 2006, is the only Spanish agency that has six nominations and, along with the English agency Shine Communications, the only other independent PR agency in Europe that succeeds six entries to these awards. This number of short listed campaigns could enable one again Marco de Comunicación to end the year as the most awarded Spanish independent PR agency.

On another hand, the Polish On Board PR agency has two entries selected for these European Excellence Awards 2007: indeed, the “NSZZ Solidarnosc: Low Wages a Barrier to Poland's Development” campaign has been short listed for Public Affairs as well as Region.

“Body. Mind. Madeira. See it.” is the name of the campaign for the Madeira Promotion Bureau that has received three nominations for the following categories: Travel and Tourism, Associations and Regional (Spain). Designed with the objective of increasing Spanish tourism in the Portuguese archipelagos, the campaign focused in making journalists experience in person the fantastic offer of the islands, ideal for wellness, and this way obtain meaningful media coverage. This way, MdC has managed to take 100% of the target media in press trips to Madeira. From television channels, women and men magazines, wellness and heart publications to national newspapers and travel magazines.

MdC has also organized two exclusive dinner parties in a castle in Madrid and in the Spa of the 5-stars Hotel La Florida in Barcelona with the assistance of more than 200 agency directors and tour operators, between the two cities. This campaign has obtained in a year 240 clippings, 178 million contacts / OTS, and a real advertising value of over 5.3 million euros. The most astonishing press clipping was an 11 page spread in Elle magazine whose readers fit the profile of Madeira's target 100%. With an initial budget of less than 145,000 euros, the campaign achieved a ROI of 3,600% and the number of Spanish tourists in Madeira has increased 37%, in spite of the limitations as far as flights are concerned.

Another campaign of Marco de Comunicación that has been short listed in the category of Tourism and Travel is the one carried out for the Italian cruise line MSC Cruises: “The Mediterranean choice of reference”. This campaign has managed to get 519 press clippings, 223 million contacts / OTS, 4.1 million euros in real advertising value, a ROI of 4,000% as well as an increase in reservations and sales of cruises in 150%. In this matter, two of the five finalists of the tourism category are campaigns of Marco de Comunicación, the other three belonging to Ogilvy Public Relations GMBH, Pestana Group 2006 Financial and PLEON.

On the other hand, the Social Awareness campaign of Intervet Laboratories: A Pet, a Life, be Responsible, already was a runner up for the European Sabre Awards, was now short listed for the regional category. This campaign was carried out by Marco de Comunicación and obtained a very significant media coverage: 17 TV clippings, 46 radio clippings, 137 clippings in printed media and 72 online clippings reaching an audience of more than 83 million contacts with a real advertising value of 2.7 million euros. The campaigned was created and implemented, including fess and out of pocket costs with a total budget of 170,000 euros. The sales of the star products for dogs increased more than 15 and 25% during campaign period. The ROI was 1,615%.

Finally, Marco de Comunicación for its client 4D Hispano, programming software for data bases, was short listed in the Corporate Advertising Category

For more information on ECCO, please visit www.ecco-network.com. For more information on Marco de Comunicación, please visit www.marcodecomunicacion.com. For more information on On Board PR, please visit www.onboard.pl.

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For media enquiries, please contact:
Didier Lagae
Managing Partner
Marco de Comunicación - ECCO Spain
 (0034) 93 635 05 00   /  (0034) 91 458 54 90 
didier@marcodecomunicacion.com
 

ECCO
ECCO is a network of independently owned and operated PR and marketing communications consultancies located in over 40 countries around the world and headquartered in London. ECCO has over 30 members in over 40 countries with €48,000,000 in billings. ECCO member agencies are successful in their own right and are owner-managed by senior people with big agency/big client experience.  ECCO's clients range from fast growing businesses such as Regus, MEGA and Interface FLOR to long established global brands like Xerox, Sony, Conoco Jet Nordics and UPS Logistics Group. ECCO was ranked 4th largest European PR network in the last PR Week League Tables to cover the independent networks (PR Week European League Table 2005).